


The Thinner the Skin

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of couches and expensive suits, with some mention of madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thinner the Skin

**Author's Note:**

> The most interesting thing about this story is that it was written immediately after "Noel" aired in Canada, but not in the United States, because Al Gore was giving his concession speech, which at the time didn't seem like as big a deal as it later turned out to be.

He's getting very attached to Sam's couch.  He can't explain why it's  
better than his own couch, but it definitely is.  Browner, maybe.    
Better upholstery.  That extra bolster pillow makes all the  
difference.  Couches usually only come with two, so that third one is  
clearly the result of a special effort.  Donna has a lot of pillows on  
her couch, but she also has a lot of cat hair, and sometimes there's  
lingerie drying on the back of it, and the whole room tends to smell a  
little floral.  Toby's couch smells like the couch of a chronically  
depressed single guy who isn't home much -- gin and scotchguard and  
cheap fabric softener.  His own couch is boring.  Sam's couch is good.

At the moment, Sam's couch is the home of Sam's jacket.  Grey wool,  
the soft kind he used to fantasize about as a kid.  Satin lining.    
Little tag on the inside that says Armani.  Nice.  Beautiful flecks of  
something darker, like ashes in smoke, are scattered through the  
weave.  Not loud enough to show up on TV, but subtle in a way that  
makes him look good up close.  It, and he, smell like something spicy  
that Josh can't name.  Cologne, and something under it that's a little  
better.  That's Sam.

Sam's coat makes a fantastic pillow, even better than the little  
square bonus that makes this couch so wonderful.  It reminds him of a  
particularly messed-up night, years ago when Sam was doing the  
Congressional aide thing, that he and Sam spent on some backroad in  
Maryland, very lost on their way back from a townhall meeting.    
Memorable because, among other things, it was the last time Sam let  
him drive anywhere.  Getting off the highway, he's still sure, was a  
good thing, because his eyes were aching from the hours fluorescent  
lights and cigarette smoke, and if he'd stayed on the four-lane, he'd  
have killed them both.  Getting off the pavement was not a good idea,  
but somehow he just wasn't regretting it while the two of them were  
sitting on the hood of Sam's rental car, breathing the dark air and  
getting loaded out of the bottle of oddly good scotch that the last  
renter had stashed in the spare tire well in place of a tire.    
Gleaming gold translucence in the glow of the flashlight when they  
went looking for the jack.

That was long, long ago, in the days before cell phones, when a man  
sitting in a field in Maryland without a spare tire was a man who was  
stuck.  Or in this case, two idiots with delusions of governmental  
importance who were stuck.  Flat tire.  Bottle of scotch.  Both of  
them already exhausted, their ties loosened and jackets unbuttoned and  
flapping in the not-very-cold wind.

Sam took the first swig.  Maybe because he was tired and young, and a  
little too clean-cut to imagine that the bottle's contents could be  
anything *except* the Johnnie blue label they were supposed to be.  He  
didn't flinch, like a good college man who'd gotten ripped on much  
worse.  Just handed Josh the bottle, wiped his mouth on the back of  
his hand, took his coat off, and walked back out to stare at the place  
where their road had ceased to be anything but a pasture track and  
where a loose strand of barbed wire had killed any hope of getting  
home that night.

So.  The two of them, smashed, staring at the hazed sky.  It didn't  
look all that different than home.  Connecticut, like Maryland, like  
everywhere east of the Plains, was permanently hazed with a thin layer  
of pollution that made the stars fade to the glow of a dull few.    
Normal.  

Normal like home.  He could remember knocking off studying, late at  
night, not wanting to think about his sister or his family or his  
dreams of law school.  Talking a friend (he remembers who, but his power  
of discretion still swallows up the name every time he tries to say  
it) into driving him out of town.  The booze was a six-pack, then,  
lifted from the fridge.  They got drunk, stared at the hazed stars,  
sweated in the June heat.  Got drunker.  Made out.  Which was . . .  
oddly good.  Better than he would have admitted then, or for some time  
after.

It was good, but it didn't compare, really, to Sam Seaborn leaning  
over a kissing him.  Just once, and not deeply, but there it was.    
Very much the kiss of a het boy who'd had a little too much to drink  
and who got curious in the process, but wonderful.  Sweet, even.  It  
tasted a lot like Sam, who tasted a lot like innocence for a man who  
worked on Capitol Hill.

So.  Just that one kiss.  But when they laid the car seats back and  
sacked out for the night, he had Sam's jacket pillowing his head, and  
the smell got under his skin sometime in the dark hours that followed.    
Enough that he was hard by morning.  He woke up when it was just  
light, and watched Sam curl on his side in the not-quite-flat-enough  
driver's seat and whimper slightly.  That short, messy dark hair that  
wasn't long enough to get into his face cast just enough shadow to  
look like it was doing just that.  Enough that Josh reached out to  
smooth it back and got a palmful of skin instead.

He stayed that way just long enough for Sam to get restless, then  
stroked fingers through his hair and watched him relax.  Petted him a  
few more times just because it felt good.  Then got up, got out, and  
walked through the morning.  Bright and wet and technicolour, just  
like it was supposed to be.  At the edge of the field, there were a  
handful of brush trees.  Enough to give him cover while he relieved  
himself and then surreptitiously jerked off.

When he came back, Sam was sitting with his legs hung out the door,  
rubbing his eyes.  A bit hung over, and a little abashed.  Very  
grateful when Josh didn't say anything.  Almost cheerful by the time  
they flagged down some guy on a tractor and talked him into giving Sam  
a lift to the nearest phone.

That was a good night.  It made Sam a friend, where before he'd just  
been a like-minded guy from around the Hill.  

Sam's fingers are nice, too.  Warm, tangling in Josh's hair.  The  
pants leg under his cheek has the same softness as the jacket.  Sam's  
cologne is everywhere.

"How're you doing?"

"How should I be doing?  I'm insane."

"You should be thrilled.  If you're ever called to give evidence  
before Congress, you've got a get-out-of-jail-free card.  You should  
be thrilled.  Besides, you've been nuts for years.  This is just the  
first time anyone let you in on the secret."

Which should sting, but oddly it just makes him feel better.  Like CJ  
might come in any second and make him speak to fifty second-graders on  
the importance of democracy, like *now*.  Very normal, like every  
other good thing he can remember.  Plus at the moment he has Sam,  
which is getting progressively to be a better thing these last few  
months.  Like Sam's an extra layer of armour that Josh can put on in  
the morning.  He doesn't always appreciate it -- hates it, most of the  
time -- but it's there, and sometimes it's good.  Sam bares a lot of  
perfect capped teeth when people come after him, and checks on him  
during lunch and does this careful diagnosis while pretending to be  
just clasping him on the shoulder.  Hugs him when he needs it.

Sam raises sudden, snarling defences of him to pretty southern girls  
that end in near-hysterics.  He remembers that incident very well,  
probably almost as well as Ainsley does, because he spent the ten  
minutes after it futilely waiting for Sam to calm down.  During the  
last two, he walked the perimeter of the room and made sure the doors  
were all locked and the venetians closed.  Then walked over and  
wrapped both arms around Sam.  Held on and pressed his face into that  
perfectly-suited shoulder.

"I'm all right."  Which was a lie.  But he wasn't physically bleeding,  
at least, and he wasn't sure, at that moment, that Sam was aware of  
that.  

He'd expected an 'I know' and a shake-off, but what he got was the  
second kiss.

That one was a little deeper.  Sam was sober, but there were a dozen  
natural chemicals in his body screaming *panic!*, and they had him on  
edge.  Both arms were wrapped tight around Josh's body, and his mouth  
opened, and there was a tongue in his mouth.  Male, warm, with a  
lingering, bitter aftertaste of coffee.  No wandering hands, but there  
was quite a bit of clinging going on.  And by the end of the kiss,  
Josh knows he wasn't the only one who was hard.  Sam was already  
blushing, already pulling away.  Fast enough that Josh didn't have  
time to lay that last, tiny kiss on him that he wanted to.

Sam's protective.  It's a fact.  And it's getting more overt.

Sometimes, Sam knows.  Really knows.  He howls more about gay rights.    
He gets in people's faces.  To be fair, he always got in people's  
faces; it's why he's a good lawyer, and God's gift to speechwriting.    
But he carries a little invisible placard around now, one that says  
*I'm doing it for Josh*.  It's cute and it's irritating, and Josh  
wishes in all honesty that he'd stop.  But he's still touched.

And at the moment, he doesn't want to be anywhere other than on Sam's  
couch, with Sam's fingers tangling in his hair and stroking the palm  
of his hand.  Under the new, hospital-sterile bandages, there are  
eight tiny black stitches that stand as a tribute to Josh's newly-  
diagnosed state of Losing It.  Donna took him to the hospital to get  
them, and fairly gloated when the intern who condescended to stitch  
him up winced in horror at the state he'd let the wound get into.  The  
intern was a good guy, though.  He took a long look at the new  
bloodshot streaks on the whites of Josh's eyes and carefully didn't  
ask how such a neatly-dressed civil servant had turned his hand into a  
work of gore.

Later, Donna stood with him in the doorway of his apartment and pursed  
her lips and said she wasn't leaving him alone.  Josh told her she  
wasn't staying with him all night.  He tried to sound fierce, but he  
knows he just sounded pathetic and tired.  So he didn't complain when  
she called Sam.  Who actually came and got him, and took him home,  
sacked him out on the couch and let him sleep until just after  
midnight.  Woke him trying to unbutton his shirt.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable."

"Sure.  You just want to get me naked."

"Yeah.  Um."  And he almost laughed, because Sam Seaborn, maximum WASP  
and shameless favourite son of the liberal survivors, blushed.  And  
managed to look like a messy high school kid with an unexpected hard-  
on.

What happened after was that Josh took off his tie himself, and his  
shirt, and sat there in his t-shirt and suit pants looking expectant  
until Sam sat down and pulled Josh's head into his lap.  Petted his  
face all over.  Talked quietly.  Long, sturdy fingers eventually  
massaged Josh's cheekbones until he relaxed and dozed and woke again  
to Sam complaining.

"Shit you're heavy.  Lift up for a sec."  Sam pushes him up and moves  
out from under him.  Crawls over him, and for a second there's a mess  
of elbows and knees that Josh is sure is going to end in tears, or  
maybe just him howling in pain.  But then Sam's behind him, and  
wrapping an arm around Josh's waist, and they're both taking advantage  
of that extra pillow and the now terminally-wrinkled jacket balled up  
on top of it.

Spooning's good.  He could do this for a long time.  Especially if  
Sam's going to lean in and kiss the base of his skull every now and  
then, as he seems inclined to do.

"You aren't allowed to go crazy, OK?"  That wonderfully warm hand is  
back, hanging onto his palm and massaging it.  

"OK.  Tell CJ she's not allowed to be mean to me anymore."  

"I'll tell her."

It occurs to him that Sam should be somewhere more celebratory.  For  
the gentiles of the world, it's the night before the big consumer day.    
Christmas, if you want to be technical about it.  But it's not  
bothering Sam, as far as he can tell, and Josh is Christmased out.  No  
more carols, if you don't mind.  Silence is good.  Just snow and Sam's  
breath.  He thinks the world could freeze like this and it would be  
OK.


End file.
